Week 1

This is the week I found my 15, 10, and 5 rep maxes for each workout. I’ve never actually took the time to record my maxes in all major lifts so recording this is useful so I look back in a year and see how I’ve progressed. Doing 15 reps was much harder than I expected as it takes a LOT of energy out of you compared to 6-8 heavy reps.

Week 2

Took this week off (strategic deloading) as the program recommends. This was the hardest week; forcing yourself not to go to the gym when it’s so routine to you is a pain and makes you feel lazy, but it was necessary.

Week 3

This is the first week of my 15 rep block. It starts off with very, very light weight which feels a little silly, but every workout after gets heavier and becomes more challenging. 2 sets of 15 reps for all 8 exercises uses A LOT of energy and makes a full body 45-60 min workout very tiring.

What I like so far

• HST Calculator is great because it provides a stress-free roadmap of exactly what weight I’ll be lifting and how many reps
• Full-body workouts feel great compared to high-volume splits
• Lots of squating; 3x a week versus my usual 1x
• Very little training to failure
• Low volume ensures that I’m not overtraining
• Lighter weight allows me to focus on perfect form

What I dislike

• Any errors in your 15,10,or 5 rep maxes makes for annoying readjustments; You’ll either feel like the weight is waay to light or heavy if your maxes aren’t accurate enough
• You’ll use a lot of 2.5lb and 5lb plates; time consuming to load up bar

As you can see, there are a lot of things I like and only a few I dislike, so overall, I love the program and recommend it. It seems to be more geared towards bulking or building muscle but I am currently trying to lose bodyfat so it’ll be interesting to see the results in the coming weeks

So it�??s time switch it!

Meet HST, Hypertrophy-Specific Training. Here is the quick and dirty:

What is it?
HST is a proven and popular workout program and set of principals developed by Brian Haycock that has been used by tons of strength trainers and bodybuilders alike with impressive results.

What�??s it good for?
Increasing muscle mass and strength or decreasing body fat. However, it�??s slightly geared towards increases size rather than strength. But you can expect both size and strength if you�??re in a calorie surplus.

What are the basics of the program?
It�??s essentially a 3 day, full-body routine where you decrease your rep range slowly over 8 weeks while increasing the weight you use.

A Step-by-Step for the HST routine:

Step 1) Pick Exercises

Choose 8-12 full body exercises that you wish to use. I recommend keeping it to 8 to minimize time in the gym and overtraining. Here are my recommended ones:

Squat
Barbell Flat Bench Press
Stiff Legged Deadlift
Bent Over Barbell Rows
Seated Shoulder Press
Straight Bar Curls
Skull Crushers
Standing Calf Raise

Step 2) Find your rep maxes for 15,10, and 5 reps.

Find your 15 rep max, 10 rep max, and 5 rep max for each exercise. Don�??t guess. Take a week to figure out your real maxes for every exercise for every rep range (15,10,5). For example, on Monday, find your 15 rep maxes, then Wednesday find your 10 rep maxes, and the on Friday find your 5 rep maxes.

*What�??s a 15 rep max? It�??s the heaviest weight you can lift for 15 reps.

Step 3) Take 9-14 days off

After you find your maxes, take the next 9-14 days off from training. This is called the �??Strategic Deconditioning�?? in the HST program. Basically you�??re �??resetting�?? yourself and your muscles so they respond better during the next 8 weeks.

Step 4) Understand the rep routine

After you have all your maxes figured out, and you�??ve rested for 9-14 days, you�??ll be performing the full body routine 3 days week (M/W/F for example) and using different rep ranges every 2 weeks. The fist 2 week block you�??ll be doing 15 reps, then 10, then 5. Example:

Week 1 �?? 15 reps
Week 2 �?? 15 reps
Week 3 �?? 10 reps
Week 4 �?? 10 reps
Week 5 �?? 5 reps
Week 6 �?? 5 reps

Sets: 2 sets for each exercise

Step 5) Figure out the weights you�??ll be lifting

The actual weight you�??ll be using for your each 2 week rep block will quite light and will gradually increase every workout to your max. Here�??s an example for someone who�??s 15 rep max is 185 pounds on squat:

Workout 1 (Week 1, Monday)- 110lbs
Workout 2 (Week 1, Wednesday)- 125lbs
Workout 3 (Week 1, Friday)- 140lbs
Workout 4 (Week 2, Monday)- 155lbs
Workout 5 (Week 2, Wednesday)- 170lbs
Workout 6 (Week 2, Friday)- 185lbs

Notice how the weight increases from light to your max over each 2 week segment. Increase each exercise 5-15lbs per workout. Compound movements (squat, bench) can be increased 10-15 pounds where isolated exercises (Curls, Skull Crushers) should be increased 5-10 pounds.

**Use this HST CALCULATOR to setup your entire routine. Plug-in 5-15lb for the �??Inc�?? (incremental) and your �??RMs�?? (rep maxes) and hit �??calculate�??.

View my sample HST routine here:

Hopefully you have your first 6 weeks figured out using the calculator. Now for week 7 and 8, you have a few choices. You can do 2 rep maxes, 5 rep maxes (just like week 5 and 6), or 5 rep maxes with drop sets.

Step 6) Start lifting!

I’ll be testing out this routine exactly how I described. I’m excited to see what results it brings (even though I’ll be in a caloric deficit). Feel free to follow along or start it up yourself.

Visit HST�??s official site for more detailed information, http://www.hypertrophy-specific.com.

Feel free to ask questions

That’s why I like to use my homemade protein bars when I’m on the go and don’t have time to cook (did that sound like an endorsement line?).

It’s far better than eating a semi-healthy restaurant meal and way better than fast food.

The problem is that most store bought protein bars are typically what I call “sugar-filled, over-processed, soy-protein filled, over-priced crap.”

What’s the solution?

Make your own!

It’s 10x cheaper and actually taste amazing (especially if you like peanut butter!). Here’s my recipe with pictures.

Ingredients:

• Whey Protein Powder
• Natural Peanut Butter
• Oats
• Milk

Instructions

1. Get Bowl

2. Add 3.5 cups of whole oats

3. Add 5 scoops Whey Protein Powder

4. Add 4 tablespoons of natural peanut butter

5. Add 1 cup milk

6. Mix it all together! It gets a little messy, so don’t be scared to dig in.

7. Important! Spray Pam on a separate plate.

8. Place contents on plate and play with it until it forms a rectangle shape.

9. Cut into 4 equal bars

10. Refrigerate for at least a few hours, and enjoy.

Voila.

Nutritional Information for one protein bar:
Total Calories: 530
Protein: 45 grams
Carbs: 57 grams
Fat: 14.5 grams

What Articles To Expect This Month

MuscleCircuit.com official bodybuilding workout plan. This will include what exercises to do, how many reps and sets, how to switch it up, and what results to expect (which are definitely big).

Sample diets with pictures. I’ll show you what to eat, every single day. No matter what your goals are or what your metabolism is like, I have a diet plan made just for you.

Essential Supplements. There’s only a few supplements I like to recommend, but the ones I like are extremely helpful.

More motivational articles. These types of articles always seem to hit home with MuscleCircuit.com readers, so I’m posting more.

Beyond those basics, I have a few other extra ideas as well. But the problem is I need to know what you want to read.

I’d love to hear your comments and suggestions. Click here to make a comment now.

Do you want to gain attention from women? Do you get something out of it besides looking better? Do you love spending tons of extra money on food and supplements?

These are just some of the questions I ask myself when I see other people at the gym and chatting online. As I put my own reasons aside, I tried to figure out why other people are so fixated on building a better body.

To answer this, I looked to a few online bodybuilding forums for answers.

The forums are public, online discussion boards. There are literally millions of forums on the internet, most are targeted to be about a specific topic. In this case, I went on to fitness/bodybuilding forums to look for information.

Take a look at the following graph to see why others do the same thing you do.

The information comes from a survey of 980 people, all who are members or at least readers of AnabolicMinds.com’s forum.

My Interpretation of the Graph

It’s interesting (and nice) to see most guys work out because it’s a healthy lifestyle. This is undoubtable the best reason as well. But just under it is vanity. It looks as though vanity is just as important to guys in general as well.

If working out didn’t make you look better, would you still do it? Asking yourself that is a good way to figure out why you really workout.

Why Do I Workout?

Initially, I wanted to attract more girls - and that’s it. After I began working out, a few months passed my results were merely decent, but I realized it was going to take a long time to really build a body good enough to impress anybody. Over the months, my interest in attracting more girls gradually transfered to bodybuilding and the science behind it. Now, I’d skip a date with a hot girl over a workout anytime, easily!

The lifestyle of bodybuilding is actually quite addictive. The endorphins from heavy lifting, the constant eating, the mental benefits, etc. In fact, I think I’d have difficulties stopping this lifestyle. When I go 3 or 4 days without working out, I become more anxious and stressed. I sometimes get frustrated with something going on in my life and working out seems to calm the storm somehow.

Why Do You Workout?

Take a minute to think about why you put yourself through the pain of working out. It might bring to mind what motivates you. Use this to motivate yourself even further.

Let’s use the following example to illustrate this:

The “Secret” Myth Examined

Grade School. We’ve all been to school before, so given that, what is the secret to getting good grades? Is there a mysterious technique to getting straight A’s? Is there a set-in-stone method proven to work for everyone?

Or does it merely have to do with going to class everyday, doing your homework, and studying hard for your tests?

Bodybuilding. With that in mind, let’s look at fitness. Is there a hidden exercise and/or type of protein to put on tons of muscle naturally? Is there a one-size-fits-all approach that holds the key to massive gains and strength?

Or is it merely have to do with eating the correct diet, training hard, and patience?

You Know the Answer

So the next time you see an advertisements claiming to have the hidden secret…

You’ll know the answer.

Supplements

1. Stick to the basics. Whey Protein, fish oil, BCAA, and a multivitamin are the basics. Stick with them.

2. Buy an iron-free multivitamin. NOW EcoGreen Men’s Multivitamin. With all the meat your eating, you don’t want to much iron - possible health hazard.

3. Get a quality BCAA. SciVation Xtend. Whether bulking or cutting, BCAAs improve recovery and reduce soreness significantly.

4. Take Whey Protein. Higher Power Whey Protein, Vanilla . One to two scoops after every workout, combine this with a carbohydrate and you have an awesome post workout shake.

5. Take Fish oil. NOW Fish Oil. Too many benefits to list, just take it.

6. Try Creatine. Higher Power Creatine. It may work wonders for you and or it may do nothing - that’s the nature of how different our bodies all are.

7. Ignore advertisements. For the love of god - you are not going to gain 15 pounds of muscle in one month from some random supplement advertised in a magazine. Read #1.

8. Be a skeptic. Lots of scams in the supplement industry, don’t be fooled and waste money.

9. Don’t ignore supplements. Focusing on diet and training is awesome, but don’t make my mistake and ignore them completely.

10. Know the truth. Supplements only work well when your diet and training is perfectly intact, which takes months and sometimes years of trial and error.

11. Research before buying. Read reviews here, or bodybuilding.com

12. Know what you want Don’t walk into a supplement shop without knowing what you want, you’ll end up buying things you do not need.

Diet

1. Eat More Frequently. Five to six small meals a day, not three.

2. Cook more, eat out less. Limit eating out to 2-3x a week, save money and get better results.

3. Eat basic foods. Eggs, oatmeal, brown rice, milk. They’re cheap and awesome for you.

4. Buy a griddle. Pesto 22″ Griddle. Pots and pans are a mess, griddle is faster and requires little cleaning.

5. Make smaller meals. Frequent, small meals will speed up your metabolism and remind your body to not burn muscle.

6. Pre-cook food. Don’t make excuses for poor diet, pre-cook saves energy and time.

7. Get tupperware. Take food on the go, easily.

8. Use healthier seasonings. Salt-free seasonings, fat-free salad dressings and fake butter spray will make everything taste better without added calories.

9. Eat veggies. Whether trying to gain muscle or lose fat, they’re essential and great for you. Makes digestion much, much easier as well.

10. Have a diverse diet. Don’t get all your protein from one source, always diversify.

11. Find a nutritionist. If you want help making a diet, find one - I did.

12. Drink a gallon of water, everyday. Bring a gallon of water everywhere you go, it’s very easy. Always a conversation piece for some reason too.

13. Buy in bulk. Save money, gas, and energy by buying in bulk.

14. Eat more oats. Rolled oats, steel-cut oats, whole-oats - know your oats because it’s the Rolls Royce of carbohydrates.

15. Eat more Sweet Potatoes and Yams. The best tasting carbohydrate ever, no seasoning needed. Just stab it with a knife, microwave for 5 minutes, and enjoy.

16. Love your food. You won’t be able to eat 6 meals a day if you hate them, experiment with a variety of quality foods and find ones you love. Makes life much easier.

17. Try a new protein. Fish, milk, cottage cheese, etc. Have at least 4-5 solid protein sources in your diet.

18. Respect fat. Fat doesn’t make you fat, eating too many calories does. Unsaturated fat has many health benefits.

19. Eat fat. Almonds, almond butter, natural peanut butter, avocado, and fat from fish are great for you.

20. Eat the same thing everyday. Counting calories is a drag, get the same benefits by building a diet on paper and eating it everyday. Makes life much easier.

At the Gym

1. Focus on the big 3. Squats, Dead lifts, and Bench press. Make these your holy grail of exercises.

2. Squeeze your muscles. Don’t focus on the movement of the workout, squeeze the muscle your working on every rep. This will tear more muscle and lead to more growth.

3. Change your reps. Three sets of 10 reps (3×10) is great for building muscle, but you’ll adapt eventually. Try a 5×5 routine for a solid 12 weeks, then go back to 3×10.

3. Flex your abs all the time. In every single workout, activating your core will lead to better form and increased core strength.

4. Use ultra-strict form. Limit your ego and use super strict form. You’ll shock your muscles and grow more by lifting less weight with strict form.

5. Get a workout partner. Absolutely essential, get one today.

6. Work out with people stronger than you. They’ll push you to get stronger and lift heavier.

6. Increase your intensity. Jack up your workout and get aggressive.

7. Record your lifts on paper. Bring a small notepad and pencil and write down the weight and number of reps for each lift you did. The following week, do more reps or more weight - every week.

8. Don’t socialize while training. Train first, socialize when your done.

9. Work out at off-peak hours. You’ll focus better when there’s less people in the gym.

10. Squat to parallel or lower. Please don’t be “that guy” - Squat like you mean it.

11. Weigh yourself weekly. Only once a week and at the exact same conditions. EX: Every monday morning before breakfast.

12. Train for 45-90 minutes, no more. More isn’t always better. Move quickly from exercise to exercise. Get in, get out. Do this and you’ll limit the number of catabolic hormones your body releases.

13. Lift heavier. Consider this the Mack Daddy tool to building muscle mass.

14. Never skip cardio. Whether bulking or cutting, don’t skip cardio. Your heart is more important.

15. Bulk or cut. Pick one or the other and commit to it.

16. Train harder than everyone else. This is easy and a lot of fun too. Take the intensity of everyone around you in your gym and double it.

17. Trial and error. Test out everything. Don’t stick to the same routine for over 12 weeks.

18. Change routines, but don’t cause chaos. Your body doesn’t adapt to your workouts instantly, so don’t do something different every single time. Stick to something for a solid 6-8 weeks, then make big changes.

19. Keep a training calendar. Write down what muscles you worked and your off days. Helps keep you from overtraining and allows you to see the big picture.

20. Take body measurements. Keep track of measurements on a monthly basis. Great way to see improvements.

21. Turn off your cellphone. “Can you hear me now?”

Life

1. Join online forums. Get involved and be apart of a community. It’s good to interact with others who care about something as much as you do, plus you’ll learn more. Bodybuilding.com and Anabolicminds.com are my two favorite.

2. Set specific goals. Don’t try and “get big” - try to gain 5 pounds of muscle in the next 8 week while not increasing your body fat percentage.

3. Balance your priorities. Balance social life with fitness, too much of either leads to problems.

4. Don’t let your friend’s think for you. Think independently; your friends eat like crap - so do you too?

5. Limit alochol. I’d like to say eliminate, but realistically - balance is more important.

6. Surround yourself with goal-oriented people. We’re all influenced by the people we’re surrounded by, so make the influence a positive one.

7. Learn from your trainer. Trainers at public gyms can be somewhat under-experienced in bodybuilding overall, but be open-minded and listen. You can always learn one new thing.

8. Make friends at the gym. I see them more than my family - so it makes sense to be friends with them.

9. Read strength training books. The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding and Strength Training are must haves. This is the most credible information you’ll find.

10. Don’t read muscle magazines for advice. Some might be okay, but they’re very difficult to trust. Use them for entertainment if anything, not as a reliable source of wise information. Read #9.

11. Stop looking in the mirror. Your body changes over long periods of time, not hourly. This will help keep your moral up as well.

12. Don’t trust everything you read and hear. I don’t care where it’s from - you need to take everything with a grain of salt and interpret it for yourself (to some degree).

13. Be patient. It takes years to build an amazing body, not weeks.

14. Work ridiculously hard. Whether it’s for your body, mind, career, relationship with girlfriend, whatever. Working hard builds confidence, which means more focus and more dicispline.

15. Write stuff down. Goals, fears, desires, etc. Crystalize your thoughts and you’re 10x more likely to achieve them.

Lastly

Subscribe to my feed or through e-mail for more tips (I couldn’t help but to add this to the list)

Goals

I want to lean out as much as possible. But given time and the fact that I don’t want to lose ANY muscle, my fat loss program will need to be extremely strategic and allow no room for error in order to maximize fat loss during my 8 week endeavor.

So, here are my current stats:

Age: 23
Weight: 176 lbs
Lean Muscle Mass: 152 lbs
Total Body Fat: 25 lbs
Body Fat: 14.2%

8 Week Ending Goal

Weight: 168 lbs
Lean Muscle Mass: 152 lbs
Total Body Fat: 16 lbs
Body Fat: 9.5%

Expected total weight loss: 10 pounds

You might think, “You need a complete fat loss strategy to lose only 10 pounds?” The short answer is yes. But remember, anyone can lose 10 pounds and fat, muscle, and water. I want to lose 10 pounds of pure body fat while maintaing all my muscle mass.

This is more difficult, hence my goal of only 10 pounds.

How Will I Do It?
Proper diet and training of course But let’s get into some detail.

Diet

This may surprise some people, but I will not be eating progressively less food through my 8 week shred-a-thon. I will consistently be eating 2500 (-/+ 100) calories everyday, every week. This will be my “control” during my little experiment. Here is my diet precisely:

Meal #1: 6 eggs scrambled (3 whole, 3 whites), 1 cup oatmeal with blueberries
Meal #2: 6 eggs scrambled (3 whole, 3 whites), 1 cup oatmeal
Meal #3: 8 oz chicken breast, 8 oz yams
Meal #4: Post Work Out Shake - ABB Mass Recovery
Meal #5: 8 oz chicken, steamed broccoli
Meal #6: 8 oz ground beef 93% lean

Total Calories: 2520 calories
Carbohydrates: 220 grams
Protein: 260 grams
Fat: 60 grams

Calorie Break Down:
45% Protein / 35% Carbs / 20% Fat

Meal #1 will be around 6 a.m. and meal #6 will be around 9 p.m. I will not be making any changes to this diet during the next 8 weeks.

Training

I will be following a strict 4-day split. The split looks like the following:

Day 1: Chest / Biceps
Day 2: Legs
Day 3: Back / Triceps
Day 4: Shoulders

I’ll use an A/B setup with this split. That means the following:

Workout A: All Barbel training
Workout B: All Dumbbell training

Here is an example of chest for workout A:

Flat barbell bench press
Incline barbell bench press
Pec Deck
Cable Flies

Here is an example of chest for workout B:

Flat Dumbbell press
Include Dumbbell press
Pec Deck
Cable Flies

I’ll be alternating A/B week by week. Example:

Week 1: A
Week 2: B
Week 3: A
Week 4: B

Pretty simple right? Ok let’s move onto cardio, where things get a little crazier.

Cardio

This is where I will place the vast majority of my fat loss strategy. Consider it a war on fat loss, and I must position my soldiers in the right position and strike at the exact right moment in order to maximize damage. And I plan on making some serious damage.

Here’s the schedule:
PWO = Post Work Out;
MC = Morning Cardio;
All cardio is at 140 bpm

Week 1: PWO 30 minutes Elliptical
Week 2: PWO 30 minutes Bike
Week 3: PWO 30 minutes Treadmill
Week 4: MC 20 minutes Elliptical + PWO 30 minutes Elliptical
Week 5: MC 20 minutes Bike + PWO 30 minutes Bike
Week 6: MC 20 minutes Treadmill + PWO Up Hill 30 minutes Treadmill
Week 7: MC 30 minutes Elliptical + PWO 30 minutes Elliptical
Week 8: MC 30 minutes Bike + PWO Bike 30 minutes

Morning Cardio (or MC) is done in the morning, on a completely empty stomach - I only drink water before hand.

Post Workout Cardio (or PWO) is done immediately after my weight training (and for good reason).

All cardio is done on my workout days only, meaning I do cardio 4x a week, no more.

Notice the progressiveness of my cardio strategy. Lots of structured “tricks” my body will have to deal with and react to, ultimately leading to fat loss - but we’ll let my results be the judge of that.

Supplementation

This section will be short. I will be using only the staples here plus a few extra goodies.

• Higher Power Whey Protein Powder, Vanilla (1.5 Scoops a day)
• SciVation Xtend, Watermelon (2 scoops pre-workout)
• NOW Fish Oil (1 cap 3x a day)
• NOW EcoGreen Men’s Multivitamin (2 grams 3x a day)
• Higher Power Glutamine (2 teaspoons post-workout)
• Ephedra + Caffeine*

*I may incorporate Ephedra and Caffeine into my schedule from week 3 - 8, but mainly it’s going to be my primary backup weapon incase things don’t go as planned. My secondary backup weapon will be diet manipulation, but I’d really like to not change my diet at all.

Putting it all together

This may look complicated, but it’s simple when you look at the basic trend of things. My diet and supplementation stay extremely stable, while my cardio slowly increases with various tricks to shock my body.
Take a look at the following graph to see the simplicity.

As you can see, the only item that changes is my cardio. Pretty simple, right?

I only work out 4 days a week, cardio included as well. I will not be doing cardio on days I don’t weight train, so that means I’ll have 3 days a week of complete rest.

Updates

I will post around 3 updates in the next 8-weeks, I don’t want to flood my blog with personal posts - I like to keep it to mainly interesting, helpful articles. You can always contact me if you have any questions about my program or have any comments.

Let the 8-week program begin!